SACE and Open-es join forces to boost the competitiveness and sustainability of italian companies

Rome, 4 November 2024 - SACE and Eni announce a strategic partnership to promote synergies through the Open-es alliance.

The aim of the agreement is to strengthen support for Italian companies, especially SMEs, in their growth journey by combining sustainability and competitiveness. This includes the integration of the Open-es and SACE ESG Hub platforms.

The transformation of Italian SMEs towards a sustainable business model is essential, and SACE aims to be at their side throughout this challenging process. To this end, SACE recently launched the SACE ESG Hub, a comprehensive ecosystem of services and resources to guide and support SMEs on their journey towards sustainability.

SACE joins Open-es as a Strategic ESG Partner, strengthening the institutional foundation and national leadership of this alliance. The partnership promotes a collaborative approach among all the main Italian business associations and institutions to support the businesses, especially Italian SMEs, in adopting and strengthening sustainable business models. 

Launched in 2021, Open-es today involves more than 25,000 companies and more than 40 organisations, including partners from industry, finance and associations. It serves as a virtuous model of public-private partnership, offering pragmatic solutions to support businesses in their transition journey through a free digital platform.

Thanks to this partnership, Open-es and the SACE ESG Hub will be integrated to provide companies with streamlined solutions to measure and improve their ESG characteristics, supporting them with simple and practical tools.

This collaboration reaffirms the shared vision and commitment of institutions, financial and industry operators to support companies in achieving their ESG goals, combining growth, competitiveness and sustainability in the production system.

"We are working to create an environment that fosters business growth through innovation, digitalisation and sustainability. The collaboration between SACE and Eni within the Open-es alliance is an important step in this direction and confirms our ongoing commitment to supporting businesses," said Antonio Frezza, Chief Marketing & Communications, Sales SMEs & Property Management Solutions at SACE. "Our initiatives promote the ‘twin transition’, a fair digital and sustainable transformation - supporting businesses in building a long-term, successful strategy to compete in global markets. Our focus is particularly on SMEs and the 11 strategic sectors for the Italian economy. For them and for the twin transition, we have developed the SACE ESG Hub - a continuously evolving digital ecosystem that integrates all SACE tools, from insurance and financial solutions to SACE Connects and SACE Education support services, which include business matching initiatives and customised training programmes."

"This agreement with SACE further strengthens our partnership for sustainable business development, prioritising the competitiveness of supply chains," added Costantino Chessa, Head of Procurement at Eni. "By pooling the resources of institutions, major industrial players and financial and insurance groups, we can pragmatically pursue the path of transition. We are proud that the Open-es alliance has become a platform where this collaboration can be realised. SACE and Eni share a common vision of supporting SMEs, focusing on the skills needed to drive this transformation and promoting alignment within the banking sector to simplify the ESG measurement and improvement process, allowing companies to focus their efforts on concrete development and growth actions.”